It almost seems sacrilegious, not to mention far more likely when the team was four-from-four a couple of weeks back, but Bay of Plenty will play the ITM Cup final at the home ground of their fiercest rivals should they make it that far.
Waikato Stadium has been nominated byBay of Plenty as their alternative venue for a national provincial championship decider on September 3, with Mt Maunganui's Baypark Stadium and Rotorua International Stadium in lockdown and deemed off-limits because of the Rugby World Cup.
Other teams still in the hunt to host the final have nominated the following venues as their alternative final venue on September 3 at 7.35pm: Auckland would play at Pukekohe stadium; Waikato at Waikato stadium and Taranaki at Palmerston North stadium.
The premiership final will be played on September 3 at 7.35pm, unless Canterbury win the right to host the final, in which case they have an exemption to hold the match at their temporary home ground of Rugby Park with a 2.30pm kick off.
Bay of Plenty Rugby Union chief executive Mike Rogers confirmed the switch to Hamilton with Bay's two home grounds not available due to Rugby World Cup 2011 clearance requirements for venues hosting tournament matches.
"Rotorua, which is a Rugby World Cup match venue early in the tournament, is under a 10-day (clearance requirement) and Baypark, as a training venue, needs a four-week window," Rogers said.
"We asked the question (of World Cup organisers) whether there could be some leniency around either venue but they came back with a resounding no."
Rogers said they looked at the viability of Waikato Stadium and Pukekohe's Bayer Growers Stadium as alternate venues before opting for Hamilton. "There are benefits to playing in Pukekohe from a financial point of view, but looking at the logistics and who potentially might be in a final Waikato was a better fit in terms of how we get supporters to travel out of the province to a home final.
"Clearly it's not an ideal scenario and Hamilton might seem like at odd choice, (but) we did try and delay our decision to see what panned out in terms of the competition. But we ran out of time. It's a sacrifice we had to make in order to host Rugby World Cup teams and games."
